Getting Altar of Skulls Going?

[MrSaucy]

In here we try to find the optimal opening for a Necromancer that gets Altar of Skulls going. Do you get out Altar of Skulls (AoS) and bring out the clerics when it is "safe?" Do you get the clerics out, build a solid foundation of skeletons and THEN cast AoS? Or do you try to get AoS going as quick as possible and force your opponent to respond? I have been testing out the last method:

Turn 1: Altar of Skulls, Acolyte of Bog Queen
Turn 2: Wall of Bones, Acolyte of Bog Queen
Turn 3: Wall of Bones (shutting yourself in and blocking LoS), Death Ring
Turn 4: Libro Mortuos (Graveyard is out of the question because it is Zone Exclusive, like AoS)
Turn 5: Mort

It is a very slow opening that can easily be undermined but how else would you do it? And you get into a situation where you aren't sure whether to use your clerics to repair your walls or place skull tokens on AoS. Would it be a better opening with another cleric? Or perhaps just 1 cleric?

[ringkichard]

Only one Acolyte per turn will be able to add a skull. Altar isn't useful except in multiplayer.

[echephron]

mage wand a reconstruct. cast those dark spirits that teleport through walls. have 2 acolytes if you want so that one can heal walls. skeleton archers incase of flyers. its ok if they break through the wall so long as you cast another one before they push most guys through.

Rather than blocking off my corner, I would make a straight double wall that they might walk around and exploit a poison gas 2 zones from your starting corner to prevent double-moves and give another turn for your archers to attack ground units.

the problem with an altar of skulls turtle is that it is tedious and takes a while. if you do finish it, get out a pestilence idol too

[barriecritzer]

put the accolyte out round 1 but you don't need to play the altar till round 2 since first round no creatures are going to die and the accolyte can't activate on round 1

[Zuberi]

I agree with barriecritzer that you can wait till round 2 to cast the Altar itself. I think my opening might be something like:

Round 1) Acolyte of the Bog Queen + Hidden Enchantment
Round 2) Move + Altar of Skulls (in starting corner) + Graveyard (in near center)

After that the main plan is to get out creatures and harass your opponent much like a normal game, although possibly with increased interest in killing his creatures, which now power up both the altar and the graveyard. You can feel free to wall the cleric and the altar off if you need to, but your mage doesn't have to be isolated with them. Leave him out to distract your opponent, both as another target to go after and as a threat to their attempts to break into the altar.

I'm not 100% sold on the Graveyard though. I mainly chose it for the synergy with killing enemy creatures, but it leaves you awfully mana starved and still lacking any real threats. It might be better to get out Libro Mortuos so that you have more mana to work with going forward. Such as, on round 3 it might be cool to deploy a Zombie Brute, equip a Meditation Amulet, and then meditate.

[Lord0fWinter]

Rather than blocking off my corner, I would make a straight double wall that they might walk around and exploit a poison gas 2 zones from your starting corner to prevent double-moves and give another turn for your archers to attack ground units.

This is the way I've done it before, with mixed success. I'm writing up an article for my blog focusing on the Altar as we speak, but I would basically have the 2 walls with a poison gas cloud at the top. I'd have the Altar in my starting zone with a Cleric and I'd cast an Archer's Watchtower in the middle zone so my Skeletal Archer can shoot over the top of the Wall.

I'd get Mort out to help keep the walls alive and if I need to, use reassemble to heal them up as well. Then I'd either bring out Grey Wraiths or Ichthellid to get through the walls and start attacking the other Mage and/or its creatures, depending on the situation. I prefer the Wraiths b/c they also inflict Weak tokens, making it harder for the enemy to kill the walls, but it's really up to you.

*Edit* - The post is up here -> http://magewars.weebly.com/strategy/altar-of-skulls

[MrSaucy]

*Edit* - The post is up here -> http://magewars.weebly.com/strategy/altar-of-skulls

Pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a bunch.

I really wish there wasn't the "once a round" restriction with priests placing skull tokens on the Altar. I realize they don't want to make any OP cards but I think just a "twice per round" restriction would be a large enough change to make the card viable in 1v1 games.

Thematically I don't understand why the card is only activated when "enemy" corporeal creatures are destroyed. If the destruction included your OWN creatures it would 1) make more sense 2) work well with Sacrificial Altar 3) work well with Shaggoth-Zora's ability to obliterate friendly zombies.

[Lord0fWinter]

Pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a bunch.

You're quite welcome. I hope it proved to be useful and informative!

[DaveW]

Thematically I don't understand why the card is only activated when "enemy" corporeal creatures are destroyed. If the destruction included your OWN creatures it would 1) make more sense 2) work well with Sacrificial Altar 3) work well with Shaggoth-Zora's ability to obliterate friendly zombies.

Thematically... I agree. I suppose, though, that the primary reason that it isn't activated on destruction of friendly corporeal creatures also is precisely because of the number of synergies.

[LetsLevelUp]

Rolling Fog is going to be really nice for helping the altar stay up.

[echephron]

I think I'm stealing this from another post, but I can't find it. The current Altar of skulls is so balanced(to the point of blah) and takes forever to start. I don't like it, so here's what I imagine. I welcome you to tell me why its broken.

Same everything as the current altar of skulls except:
1)Destroyed Friendly Living creatures add a skull token (including with sacrificial altar)
2)Clerics can add a skull token: Cleric spends a full action (in any zone) and destroys a friendly living creature in that zone(which could be himself). This adds 2 skull tokens in total when you include (1).
3)Clerics cannot "pray at altar" to add a token
4)I would be open to enemy nonliving creatures NOT adding skull tokens


Yes, you can get the altar fully operational in half the time, but it requires your necromancer to spend 4 full actions summoning living creatures that have to die. the altar costs an extra 20 mana in sacrificed clerics.

Synergy:
zombies pyramid and killing your own living creatures
reanimate has a stockpile of creatures to draw from

now go ahead and tell me how my idea is awesome.

[Shad0w]

In testing we keep breaking it. I would need to look your version to see if has any loop holes.

[DaveW]

Why not just let more than one Cleric put a skull token on it in a turn?

Even just changing it to a limit of two instead of one would seem (to me, anyway) to make it work. It'd be somewhat faster and in order to make use of this, you have to bring out the second Cleric (who can't do anything else like shoring up the walls), and aren't killing enemy Creatures as fast since you brought out a Cleric instead of some kind of undead who would be attacking the enemy, etc.

[ACG]

I recently won a game using Altar of Skulls (wanted to see if I could get it going). My opening was:

1 (20): Acolyte of the Bog Queen (15), Death Ring (10)
2 (20): Altar of Skulls (11), Libro Mortuos (2)

From there, I put up walls to form a "corridor of bones" on my side, put down an idol of pestilence and started spawning skeletal minions and skeletal sentries to defend myself, and a deathfang (eternal servant) to harass my opponent (a water wizard). I used a meditation amulet to build up a surplus of mana, since I didn't need to move. I accelerated the altar's charging by killing two enemy creatures. Once the altar was up and running, I was doing 3 poison damage to everything each upkeep phase, which is awesome.

So my experience is, if you devote your resources to protecting the altar (including walls), it isn't too difficult to get it up and running. The Libro Mortuos' ability  to spawn cheap defenders is very helpful in this.

I don't think the altar needs to be changed.

[sIKE]

True Control decks are the hardest for me to play as I am move of a mid-Range style kind of player. Talos is another one of those kind of decks that require a lot of Control to win the game. I have seen Schwenkgott play the Altar of Skulls like ACG described on OCTGN to great effect. It is a long slow play to win with it though.